Holistic Overview: Can Men Wear Earrings? -Mufti Abu Layth

should we take a look at that what say you folks what say you earrings people earrings so let me just open this up okay here it is right now bismillah folks the ruling on earrings somebody just the admin just commented the type of guy that you'd want your daughter to

marry that's those those one or two guys that we only ever know we think wow they need to be more men like that yeah in this world well anyway let admin stop distracting me right let's focus people bismillah right so earrings what is what is the ruling can men wear earrings rather can men wear earrings according to Islam now the answer is clearly yes they can

we hearings but more than just going through a simple ruling I'd like to give a holistic overview okay then coming back to the ruling and I'd like to focus on certain I am certain traditions that have been rated some of the practices of the Salaf and things like this right so first of all we there's there seems to be this this thing that people feel that an earring is effeminate that they feel that this may be only homosexuals would wear earrings or people trying to act like

women somehow are trying to a soul somebody commented on one of my photos saying that oh you know I don't understand the earring because it's only something women that you'd identify women with so this seems to be this conception this misconcept you know that women only wait you ring so I'm gonna zoom out slightly and then we'll zoom back in people okay so I'm gonna go over a brief overview give us a backdrop of earrings now for thousands of years those of us that but pick for people who do not know for thousands of

years human beings have used jewelry okay thousands and thousands of years at least from documentation that we and it's not just documents it's inscriptions it's rock art things like this we can see that human beings from at least documented something like opportunity anything between seven to nine thousand years ago were adorning themselves with jewelry we see men many civilizations okay so you've got several kind of dynasties if we go for as far

back as almost four and a half thousand years ago the kingdoms of Assyria so with its capital iseul which is probably modern-day Nineveh you see kingdoms like that that the men would often wear earrings especially to denote high status and many of the any whether they were aristocrats or people of any kind of nobility within the Assyrian Empire which is the modern-day Middle East they would wear earrings it's known from the clay tablets when they spoke about things when they give gave descriptions

we still have that in the clay tablets we have if you look at places like Egypt for example the Egyptian civilizations in the papyri that has survived from thousands of years going back 4000 years if not more it described their prominent people the men as all wearing earrings and the prominent men they described them as wearing earrings if not all but many amongst them about the Egyptian civilization even any of the great excavations of mummies

of mummified figures that went once unwrapped they found the ears to be the men they found the ears to be piece pierced so you have these kind of things if you look at the biblical sources from the time of Moses okay the story the famous story which is mentioned in the Bible in the Koran as well about when Moses went to when he went away the people the Israelites asked Harun to help them make a God in to get gold and the Quran refers to the story as well

that he made this kind of that they made this kind of this calf this kind of cow golden cow lah who's that he had a kind of sound to it so and they started worshipping this and then when Moses comes back he's very upset for you know allaha of Bona that he was angry through the kind of the slates that he had these but the point is in the Bible it mentions Harun Aaron when he's asked to make a cow a golden cow for them he says to them that go bring me the gold and he

mentions it's in the Bible bring me the earrings from you he says from your boys the earrings and he asks for the girls as well but he asks for the boys the boys earrings so you see that even thousands of years ago the Israelites they had this practice you see the the Achaemenid Empire the persian empire that existed in the middle east that began with cyrus the 1st and ends made our is the third you see in their kingdom their Persepolis then one of the

main kind of capitals which is probably north of around modern-day Shiraz many of the paintings of these soldiers that have survived showed that they the soldiers the men would wear earrings okay so you've got this kind of tradition it is true that the Romans didn't wear earrings generally they in fact described it as an Eastern thing an oriental thing and one of the reasons that they never wore him was because a lot of the slaves wore earrings the men so they didn't want they saw it as a

lowly thing and an Eastern thing and perhaps this was partly due to their rivalry with the Persians and the Achaemenid and the other sassanid kind of empires but the Persians definitely did wear hearings if you look to the to the east like India the some of the greatest ruling dynasties the tamil dynasties like the chola dynasty which was one of the longest empires ruling empires in India ever centuries and centuries on in a lot of their ancient scriptures and a lot of their statues and drawings and whatever they have and depict the men always especially the kings and other people always wearing

earrings if you move to Europe people this is to give us a backdrop and then we'll zoom back in many people in ancient Europe did where men I'm speaking about men specifically they wore earrings in fact you had it was seen as a kind of class thing so the poor people the peasants they usually wore copper earrings the nobility and businessmen merchants wore kind of precious metals like gold and silver and the Kings usually wore earrings out of rubies or emeralds and things like this

so this is this seems to be the the if you look at places like the ancient reus dynasties the Russian the ancient Russian dynasties and you look at they had Cossack Ottomans who were they kind of military leaders they often marked their children with earrings so if a boy was the only child the boy would wear a right earring you wear an earring in the right and where they had met children many boys the last of the men would always wear an earring in their left so you see things like that in

other parts of Europe the church especially as the church began to get more prominent the church prohibited men from wearing earrings now so you see the church influenced it starts to say that no these things should be restricted to women and the church starts to pass out ruling however many men still especially those who defied Authority often still wore earrings hence pirates throughout history usually wore earrings almost as an act of defiance and to kind of show that thing and many people who challenge the

authority sometimes of the church historically wore earrings so you see that because to show this kind of this self Authority in a way you have other other ancient kingdoms like the native Indians them wearing earrings now the reason I'm mentioning all of this is to give a backdrop that some people seem to think that people never wore earring men never wore earrings and this is a very recent phenomenon began since the

hippies and so on and and now it's just recent this has been something that has existed for thousands and thousands of years often worn by men usually men of nobility or soldiers this was often I think sailors who travelled around the world often wore earrings as a sign to show that they traveled around the world throughout this is throughout huge parts of history diverse societies this was never seen generally as a thing exclusive to women now I'm just giving us a backdrop now I'm going to kind of

zoom back into the Islamic sentiment in the lifetime of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam men wore ear you will see that in the society in which the Prophet lived boy is especially young boys wore earrings and you will see that this trend continues or at least during the time of the selleth that during the Sahaba the terrain and the at-bat urbane this trend seems to carry on that the boys often wore earring and many people considered it sooner for the boy to wear an earring

now you see when they became men many of them may have removed it the earrings and some of them may have kept it but the fact that they wore earrings as boys was definitely a widespread phenomenon during the era of the Salaf now later on as the centuries progressed it is true that Muslim culture by and large not all especially within the mainstream like an hour and I'll come back to this in a moment that especially a lot of the so-called Sunni orthodoxy the clergy

started to stamp down on these things and prohibit it just like the Christian Church of Europe and they may have been influenced by the Christian Church of influence in doing this and hence you see that she are refused on this point of the Sunnis so this the Shia seem to have kept it alive in their tradition right through up until today so now we're going to come back now to some of the sources so you will find a hadith which is transmitted by if not a bus or the Allah on who states that subrata -

Sun and this is in the the marginal all sort of tehrani and it's been declared by several scholars including the recent legend Maya - Sharia of al-azhar asahi even Abbas says seven seven or from the Sunna for the boy fist he says fasabi regarding the boy Yoma survey on the seventh day as a ceremony he will formally be named so he goes through all of these things that he will be circumcised and he's talking about the boy and it goes on to mention that what to Scott or

the new HOH and his ear will be pierced okay this is the boy now you may think well man that's even our bus for the Elan and he says what your up go and when you will give the Atika and things like this now you may say well I don't really know now let me tell you something people the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam scranton both of his grandsons Hasan and Husayn radi allahu anhu man had the ears pierced and they both wore earrings that's correct

hassan radi allahu on and Hussein rodeo on imam husain bull earrings in fact imam hussain had two earrings he would wear one it's described generally the Arabs described this to be a court which is in the lower on the lobe and they described that on top to be a shelf and they say Hussein had both he had a court and a shelf right so that's Imam Hussein you and you will see that the sheer traditions continue to narrate this Imam Jaffa imam ja'far the teacher of abu

hanifa the teacher of imam ali who lived in medina transmits he transmits from going through his father muhammad al-baqir through Zine El Abidine through her saying from he transmits this hadith that the Prophet said yeah Fatima earth will be other mail Hassan will have seen that pierce the ears of Hasan and Husayn in another narration and you've got several iterations that Hasan and Husayn wore earrings right then these are the grandsons of the Prophet these are some

of the the greatest people in Islam they will earrings now you will have even even the narration now check this out people so you have later Shia kept this alive by continuously truck and I say the amount but these were the amounts that even soomi's accept so you will have narrations where they described that when Hussein was born that they talked about ozone hole that they pierced his ear and so on and he wore an earring now what's interesting is her knee Allah dorami who is one of

the people that was who describes the events of Karbala and he was one of the people that killed is involved in martyring hussain ali allah whan he describes that when we attacked him he says when he felt in fact the wording is he says in nila walkathon are shiroyasha I was from the ten that was standing when Husain fell he says l'm sorry I he says lemasurier Al Hussein what was the rule and he says that when Hussein fell and he was dazed here a toughy - you mean awashima and he was looking left and right left and right he says

what kora Tahu Yetta that the ban and his both earrings were shaking and he describes the events of when they he was on I mean he was obviously one of the people that Martin and killed Hussein really long but he describes the events quite vividly and other people do as well that during his final time Imam Hussain really Allah on had two earrings in another narration they say were fiorini he do return in both of his ears he wore earrings now you may think well no that doesn't sound quite right and I'll come back to this point just hold

that thought let me transmit to you from the must net of coming back to Sunni sources the most nada abou yeah Allah the most net of Abu yalla famous humbly son Nima hadith he transmits from a great scholar of hadith uberman Hal who says when he went to visit Abu I went to visit a Boober as well as la me he says and I was still a young man Rafi although knee he says or in Fe o dunya poor attain and used to have two earrings at that time when I used to study hadith that's in the must net of Abu Yahya let's not stop

there people people may say who's a bloomin hat okay let's go to a greatest corner let's go to a greater one Sophia Nina Allah the great didn't have faith of Makkah from the Salaf era sharaba as transmitted by the hubby in ceará al-amin novella in volume 8 page four six two people he mentions the eyes RIE - Abner alaina wa huwa olam he says I saw if not Janna when he was a young man carrying these great he had these great kind of Allah these things which he

would document on and write all these hadith he says I saw him way wandering in the streets chilling out with his mates la la in the Umrah Bernardin are sitting in a hadith class with the greatest happy the hadith of Makkah in that time I'm reading a Tina Rafi ozoni he Court and in his ear he had an earring this is Yusef even

arguing now let's not stop keep on my right who can be a greater legend from the selleth then Sophia and even you guessed it people who Saffiano llena himself says that was the greatest color in Hejaz in his time none other than the eylem of alum of medina people imam ali Kipnis you will people you'll find my own teacher of the runny and if car one of the greatest orlimar sham he has a

book on imam malik in the silsila of the great people of this oh man he has about the four Imams and or yes mainly about great Imams especially the four and people like that in his book of Imam Malik what does he say he documents this was one of the greatest scholars of his era he was a luminous Abdullah need.if car he's the one I've spoken of before by the way in my interviews where I've said he was an old man had a great sense of humor and he used to sometimes try and trick people over and he was well known in sham he was well known throughout the Arab world in his era he used to have a regular

weekly darts from fertile valley teaching a commentary on Bihari and he was deemed the most knowledgeable person we kitabi siebel way in his era in his time this was we're talking like the 90s and so on he won like countless awards for his knowledge on things like that and he was really fascinated by the way when he met me especially me being Pakistani of ethnically and being Maliki he found that very unique now that time I served these long curtains and I mentioned used to find that very fascinating my kind of but I used to have a likes to always meet him in that musty than and chat to him about

issues but in his book he begins where he's speaking about imam malik and he says well the thurible Rabia and imam malik was fortunate to then he really pounced on this opportunity to study with Ravi - Ravi one of the great element of Medina and he says what Wafi may are Titian and he was still you know at this time Malik was still bursting with youth he was a young man Maya's a law court Maya's a law court people feel Denis he he still had an earring on in his ear

this is who Imam Malik this is then transmitted again by another you got another scholar Maliki scholarship I heard mohammed ur diri who wrote a book which was then authorized and you know his part of his tacky Kamel kora is a Sudanese great chef I mean he's got hadith the rules there on YouTube and things like that in his book is the reach of the hadith of the Madonna in the introduction to Imam Malik he mentions the same thing work an AVI or Imam Malik would have an earring in his ear especially when he was a young

man maybe in later age whether he kept it in or not but he worried while he was a young man and hence you have the hence you have the the tradition as well Imam Malik son wore an earring Mohammed he would often be when when people looked at him and he was playing with the Falcon and and he would wear an earring and that was the the stories kind of well known but let's not stop there people will then say what else where are these traditions people where what else

have we got people all beyond what a seal by even a ruched algid that the daddy the daddy nourished was so la speaking about Imam Malik was so Allah and courted the hablas sabi he is asked about a Golden Earring for young boys Carla Turku habbo Aliyah fulfillment he said it's better to leave it for young men all a blur ruched al-qura javi had a beginner he says why is it discouraged

that's obvious lianna sabi he goes on to say let me finally me Hakuna Matata be done for Walid Huma Abedin fee now he says that because even if the child isn't McAuliffe his parent is McAuliffe so as its knock Amalia hello Lamia scale Hummer so as he shouldn't be giving him alcohol to drink for kadala calamba allahu and you halia will be that so likewise he shouldn't be adorning his son with gold the issue was golden earrings the question that he asks Malik young boys

wearing golden earrings what is your ruling and Imam Malik said I prefer that they don't okay so this is from beyond what I tell people you've got volume 18 page four for one kitab of Jamia thurman kappa pasa you know some of these party debaters they think of this volume this pay this this this this number left side there you go uh cup up uh some people come

over so you've got that then you've got rulings now check this out you've got I love me he's being asked in his in his table Salah that about certain things if when you punish certain people for what they steal now look at what was often being stolen look at what was often being stolen and he discusses this muscle and he says he says what in soraka shaken he says what about from a young boy if they got a young boy and they robbed him is that do you can because what they debating is what is the head is what is

guarded property and what like assets like you've hidden something and something isn't he didn't like you just put it here and somebody takes it then there's a distinction between robbery and theft so they're drawing this distinction but and they're looking at the issue what about if you're wearing something like I'm wearing a necklace somebody snatches he and something that would often happen and he speaks about young boy like a young boy and he says he says oh Soraka Portland Maine Oh Donaghy what if he stole the earring from the boy for Encana Sabich a baron

yeah Hadees uma Ali he so he says if the boy was old enough he was an old like a young man and they robbed his earring then that is protected like they would be punished like that would count as theft but he says if it was a young boy like a very like a infant doesn't know what's going on then he discusses that ruling of his but look at this being a common issue that boys wearing earrings so this ruling and you might think well really left me saying it people young Malick and what there was hear that and well there was hear that people

same thing same issue hundreds of years this is in the fourth century for 300 people love me you're talking a hundred years later this 100 years earlier look the same issue woman Soraka court pan whosoever stolen earring min owes me sabe o see Warren or a bracelet or bangle that he was wearing for most famous ilaha il-allah he's talking about the same issue does it count as a so if no B's aid is addressing it as well we lived in Tunis a different North Africa so you can see these rulings being discussed by olomana

right through a so it's very clear the early generations did not see this as something to do with women or restricted to women in fact they generally always the young boys especially they would make them we and here what's interesting is a man son I mean subra Salam under bubble Atika he brings the narration he says that

that this was also a Hanafy according to the Hanna fear it was also a ruling now hmm but he also brings he I'm just

trying to see where he's that he says that called the Han from the Hanna fear said that the tiful the young boy has his earpiece but then later on the Hannah fear may disagree with Cody Han and say that that's oh that's only talking about a girl but the word used by Cody Han is is piffle okay

[Music] anyway oh but that's not because I know that Hanna fear won't accept it anyway but he does bring the alright so here is he brings he says that the Hanna the humble ease said that it was that you shouldn't even give curls in your ring

because it's harmful but he goes on to say well FIFA tower party Han mineral Hanafy Arab Sabbath up it wasn't it definitely unknown kind of feel jahiliya if you know because he says there's no problem according to call the harm from the Hannah fear for boys to have an e an earring because in Jogja Leah they used to do this well a myung-kil Elena be and the Prophet did not criticize it or object to it now I know some hanafis may say that all you know that was really about girls but but the point is there it is now if you look at those people who opposed earrings a lot of them said that the ruling for it was because it caused harm

but then the issue is if you have if if you can do it for girls then you should be able to do for guys it makes no difference the ruling is the same okay I hope that clarifies the other thing I would state is if people are saying the what makes it impermissible is imitates women it does not imitate women you have thousands of years of history of men equally wearing earrings and then I would say that look what about God

wearing eyeliner like soorma this many people claim many men religious men in the indo-pak world we eyeliner now you would think Imam Ali didn't like it because he said it's not Sunnah this was just something done for medicinal purposes yet these people feel there's no problem in men wearing eyeliner which is definitely effeminate today so you see these things are simply cultural matters another issue somebody may state is that you said Imam Hasan and Husayn wore

earrings which they did I do actually believe that Imam Hussain and mum has sent more earrings now people may say yes but that is transmitted by the Shia sources and I would say yes that's true it is transmitted by the Shia sources so they would say what we can't accept anything but from the Shia but I would ask you look listen let's be honest let's be honest why can't like this rule everything that she are saying must be a lie is so ridiculous it's so biased it's so

prejudiced that we happen to be the lucky ones that have everything everything that why would the Shia say something like that about Imam Hussain why like why would they transmit why would Imam Jafar in his with the teacher of Imam Malik who's the teacher in in the books transmitted from Husain his great-great-grandfather why would he do that saying something like earrings unless they were actually factual it makes no sense for them to discredit their own Imams their own ancestors the grandsons of the Prophet makes no sense

and then if you to say well how can we accept this narration I don't believe it look nobody's telling you to believe it but let me make a point here let me make a point look there is a Rowi there is a narrator by the name of Imran even ahead Bom right this guy is one of the leading corage of his time leaving what it all this time he's from the turban in Iran yeah he is used by Bihari on more than one occasion in his hadith at least to come to my mind straightaway where he is being quoted by Imam Bihari he is one of the people Imam Hadi uses

as a narrator as in his trustworthy this guy would openly openly at the Serie alarm in Urbana if you read fertile bird even a hundred statement on him this guy would openly praise abnormal Jim for killing Sedna a leader of the Aloha openly in fact he has a very famous poem saying that when he struck Ally in the head to kill him that strike was a strike full of taqwa I'm like it's blessed and so on and so forth he would openly say these things yet body took from him Bihari said oh he's he's okay

because he was from the worshipping people of this Ummah what kind of let's be honest people I want to ask you a question I'm not sure I disagree with the Shia on their points I support you know the stance of and my videos are very clear for how we are all the Aloha on you know I'm not and the Shia know this about me I'm not kind of but let's be honest if we had somebody praising look I'm a juicy for killing rommel or the Elan let's say this a narrator in the turban who writes poems praising the murderer of Rama would we

accept him so why do we accept the the one who's praising the person who murdered I literally lon like this is just this is just ridiculous like we are just so drowned in prejudice and bias the point is that anybody these were all great companions you know said in highly said in Omar I believe these were all great companions of the Prophet they were all very close to prophet said nah he was murdered by bonamo Jim some guy openly praises him and he remains praising him till his deathbed in fact if not had your rights infertile

body some people said he did Toba this guy says no he didn't he says they had a bodied now we get Buhari accepts him so we accept him Yahveh apnic haram nemanja you know the hypocrisy that we have and this is why it infuriates a lot of the Shia people but can you blame them because here's a guy who's killed Satan eilean here's somebody who's follows that person and praises him all the time write poetry not only praising him but praising that he killed Ali and then suddenly say yeah this guy is fine we

can take from him but we can't take from imam ja'far or any of the Shia Imams if it's in a Shia book when they're describing that Hussein used to wear earrings why oh because it's coming from that's just stupid let's just be honest I'm trying to be fitted so and then the fact that many of these ingrate Mohideen Imam wore these earrings like a bloomin heart sufyani be Narayana in mom Miley called and there's a very interesting statement in a book by it's by evening Adama I believe in his tawa being where he states one of the most pious people he

ever met in his lifetime he describes this man he says he was the most God fear not pious re he says he was the most god-fearing man I met in my life and he said and he describes him and he says he wore an earring so this is this so this is a kind of an overview a holistic overview that yes wearing earrings is permissible for men yes it is always for thousands of years being something that men have worn often in times of to show that they don't follow things like the Christian Church in Europe or they defy those things but many soldiers the Assyrians and other

people pirates and all these people I spoke of at the beginning of this discussion all wore earrings in the prophets time men wore earrings it's evident the children definitely wore earrings many of the cell of the prophets on grunts grandsons Hasan and Husayn wore earrings and imam malik warren earrings of Jannik Norina worn earring but yes in the generations and hundreds of years later orlimar started to turn against this practice and they seem to perhaps they were influenced by the Christian Church of Europe perhaps by other traditions but they seem to think this is no good but that's fine

they can think that but you if you do decide to choose it you have a great precedent people like Imam Husayn Imam Malik all these people who you know you're in great company so that's what I would say and to say that this is imitating women is ridiculous because things like go hell would be more identifying with imitating women yet people seem to be fine with wearing eyeliner for men so these are very arbitrary statements so I hope that's a good kind of holistic overview to demonstrate the permissibility and I accept people can say whatever they want they can say it's

Haram are going to them but the evidence is speak for themselves right okay people let's whoa let's move on right so I think we've kinda